


Danganronpa: Neo Spirit

by jisungracha



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Danganronpa AU, M/M, Multi, Murder Mystery, if u havent played the game ill explain it in the notes, jeno is the protag, lots of character death sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-04 05:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16340270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jisungracha/pseuds/jisungracha
Summary: Jeno finally makes it to the school of his dreams, but not in the way he imagined. Trapped in a school with 15 other students and forced into a killing game, Jeno finds himself in not just a fight for his life, but a fight for all 16 students.(aka a nct danganronpa au bc theyre the only group with enough ppl for it)





	1. Chapter 0- Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So to summarize the danganronpa series: 16 students that are attending Hope’s Peak Academy, an elite school for students that specialize in their field, are trapped somewhere. In this case, they’re trapped in the school itself. But in all games, the students are forced to kill each other if they want to leave.
> 
> So keep in mind that there will be a lot of character death- like, over half the cast will die by the end. Also keep in mind that danganronpa is a longass game with 6 chapters. this work will have about 3x that bc im splitting each chapter up so theyre not so long. Anyways, this first chapter is the prologue.

Jeno had really made it- the school of his dreams was right in front of him. He felt as if he was walking on air as he moved to the the doors that held his future. When he finally opened the doors, he instead felt like he was falling through air- then just as suddenly, he felt nothing. . .

 

Jeno woke up feeling like shit. He realized he was lying on the floor, but couldn’t feel bothered to think about why. But when he slowly opened his eyes and realized he was not at home, his brain kicked into gear. Not only was he not at home, he was in a building with steel plates over the windows. What the fuck had happened last night?

Jeno sat up and tried recalling the events of yesterday. He remembered waking up, ready to attend the school of his dreams; Hope’s Peak Academy. And then when he walked through the doors..

“Agh!” His own scream broke the silence. When he tried to remember more past that point, it felt like his brain had overloaded. Jeno decided to avoid further pain and instead focus on his current situation. Which probably wouldn’t be much less of a headache, but it was better than sitting on the floor in pain.

Jeno propped himself up and looked down the hall. The walls were lined with windows, all covered in sturdy steel plates. He went up to one and tried to yank on the bolts, not expecting anything. He still couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread course through his body when the plate didn’t budge.

There were two doors on the left side of the hall, and three on the right. There was also one door on each end of the hall. One had a giant lock over it. The ones on the left were respectively labelled 1-A and 1-B. Like… classrooms? If this were a school, why were the windows bolted shut? If Jeno’s been kidnapped, why would he even be taken to a school?

He pushed these questions down and tried to figure out the answers himself by pushing the door to 1-A open. 

Jeno was surprised to see a normal classroom. If this was a serial killers hideout, this probably wouldn’t be here, right? Jeno knew he couldn’t relax just yet, but the familiar atmosphere made him feel safer. Right when Jeno had steadied his breathing, he noticed something at the back of the classroom that knocked the breath right out of him again. 

A person. They were sleeping, face smothered against one of the desks. All Jeno could see from where he was standing was a head of pink hair. He slowly approached the person, seeing as they might be Jeno’s only clue about what situation Jeno is in.

“Hello?” Jeno tried to keep his voice quiet; his kidnappers could be lurking. Wait, couldn’t this person sleeping be his kidnapper? Would they leave themselves in such a vulnerable position though? Oh god what if Jeno just woke up his kidnapper and missed his chance to take him out. Could Jeno even go through with that???

The (potential?) kidnapper slowly raised their head and made eye contact with Jeno. Jeno immediately felt his heart soften. They had soft features and a pretty face. They looked confused, scrunching up their nose, and slowly looking around the classroom. “Where.. am I? Who are you?” This guy already seemed a lot calmer than Jeno.

“I- I don’t know, I just woke up here.. like you, but I was in the hall instead. I guess we’re in a school?” Jeno is still a little wary of the pink haired guy, choosing his words carefully and standing back.

He then looks down at the desk he was seated at, and looks back up at Jeno. “Yeah.. isn’t that weird? We were kidnapped and put in a school? Is it just us here?” Jeno’s eyes widen at that last statement; could it be just them? Why them? 

The guy seems to be in deep thought before he speaks up again. “Hey, what do you last remember? Before waking up in the hallway.” 

“I was standing before Hope’s Peak Academy and-“  
“Hope’s Peak? I was there too.. could that be where we are now?”

If Jeno was being honest, he hadn’t even thought of that possibility. It seemed likely though.. he hadn’t seen the inside before so he wasn’t sure but it was probably safe to make the conclusion.

“Seems likely.. it was the same for you?”  
“Yep. I stood before the giant doors, and the moment I opened them I just.. can’t remember past that.”  
“Yeah.. I’m exactly the same.” Jeno uselessly replies, overwhelmed with the situation.

“Well, what’s your name? Looks like we’ll be stuck together for a bit.”  
“Hey, we don’t know that! This could still all be a big prank or like.. a weird opening ceremony. Anyways, I’m Jeno. I got into this school through a lottery.. I know it’s kinda sad, but I just couldn’t get in through any other way. I was admitted as the ultimate lucky student for it, though.”

Jaemin nods at the introduction, then speaks up himself. “I guess an opening ceremony like this could fit the grand Hope’s Peak Academy, huh? I’m Jaemin.. I-“ He abruptly stops, then lets out a sharp noise of pain. Jeno reacts quickly, getting closer to the desk and asking “What’s wrong?”

“I just got this pain in my head when I tried to remember.. to remember my talent. I can’t remember how I got accepted into this school.” Jaemin pauses, then another noise of pain follows.

“Hey, don’t think about it.. it’s fine if you don’t remember.” Jeno didn’t want to see the boy in pain anymore. It was pretty clear at this point that he wouldn’t do Jeno any harm.

“Uh, anyways, there was another room next to this one out in the hall. Should we see if anyone else is here?”  
“Yeah, we need to get more information. Since I wasn’t much help..” Jaemin gets up, stretching his arms, like he woke up from a long nap.

Jeno begins to walk out of the room, and opens the door to 1-B after hearing Jaemin’s footsteps following him. Upon opening the door, he hears a voice and stops to listen.

“Hey, we have to work together! It’s just you and-“ The person speaking stops when he hears the door opening, and turns to Jeno and Jaemin.

“Looks like you were wrong.” A soft voice simply says, directing Jeno’s attention to a tired-looking boy sitting in a desk at the center of the classroom.

“Who the hell are you guys? Did you bring us here? My family is rich-“  
“Let me guess, you were going to Hope’s Peak, and then you woke up here.” Jaemin states it so simply it makes the loud guy shut up.

The boy who had looked tired before suddenly widened his eyes at Jaemin. “Yeah, that’s right.. so you guys too? You’re both students here?”

Jeno walks further into the room, introducing himself to the two people in the same situation as him. “Yeah, I’m Jeno and this is Jaemin. We both woke up here. Do you guys remember your talent?”

The guy standing up scoffs before replying. “Of course we do. I’m Yuta, the ultimate prince. This is Sicheng, and he’s the ultimate chinese traditional dancer.” Sicheng looks annoyed with Yuta speaking for him. Wait, ultimate prince? How is that even a talent? But maybe Jeno couldn’t speak as the ultimate luck. He knew of Sicheng and his talent, however. He was often on the news for his graceful dances. It was kinda weird seeing him in person.

Sicheng speaks before Yuta can again. “That’s all we know. If we want to learn more, we should check out the other rooms. There’s gotta be more of us here, don’t you think?”

Jeno and Jaemin nod in sync, waiting for the dancer to get up. “There were three doors on the right.. let’s check those out first.” Jeno offers.

The others follow him out into the hallway, then to the first door; it was labelled “Break room”. Jeno opened the door, Jaemin making a point to stand directly behind him.

When Jeno walks in, the first thing he notices is a person’s figure. They appear to be looking at something on the counter next to a vending machine. 

Jeno doesn’t think twice before calling out to the person. “Hello? We-“ 

The person spins around, brandishing a- a knife?! where did he get that? Is this their kidnapper? He feels Jaemin pinch the back of his shirt, pulling him back to safety.

“I don’t know how you guys were stupid enough to leave a knife lying around, but stay away from me! I won’t feel bad about using this if it’s on you lunatics!”  
“Whoa, what? Hey, we’re in the same boat as you- calm down, okay?” Jeno fumbles to reason with the man; he must be another victim. If he was the kidnapper, he wouldn’t say something like that.

The man doesn’t drop the knife, but slightly lowers it. Progress. “What do you mean? Don’t try to tell me you were all kidnapped too.” 

Jaemin interjects with “Why wouldn’t that be plausible? We’re all students- well, were going to be students, of Hope’s Peak before we woke up here.”

The man’s suspicion fades, and he lowers the knife to his side. “Huh.. same for me. Why are there five of us?” Okay so he’s not gonna apologize for the whole knife thing then.

“Yeah, so far. So who are you and how do you have a knife?”  
“I’m Doyoung; the ultimate talk show host. You don’t recognize my voice? Anyways, this knife was just lying on the counter. It was there when I woke up.” 

Jeno recognizes Doyoung the second he says his name; he was famous for the the Vroom Vroom talk show, which he hosts. He can’t believe he was just threatened by the guy who’s interviewed hundreds of celebrities. 

But the knife- why would the kidnappers leave a weapon out? Seems like a silly mistake for people who had the resources to bolt all these windows shut. Does that mean.. they meant to leave the knife out?

Jaemin introduces himself, then everyone follows. 

“So it’s the same for everyone.. I’ll join your search then.” Doyoung simply states, walking over to the group. Jeno leads everyone out of the break room, to the room next door, simply labelled “Store”. Jeno remembers that Doyoung had brought the knife along, just in case they ran into their kidnapper. With this in mind, he opens the door without fear. He stumbles into yet another conversation. This time though, three voices are heard.

“No way.. do it again!” A loud, booming voice, eager as a child.  
“Come on, can we please start looking around or something?” A very irritated voice, impatient.  
“One more time, then we need to start searching.” A patient, soft voice.

“What’s going on here?” Yuta announces the group’s presence, addressing the three men in the center of the room.

They look up from their.. card game? What was going on here?

“W-who are you guys? Are you also students of Hope’s Peak?” The patient one; the one holding the cards, asked them.

“We are.. so you guys also woke up here? Why are you playing cards in this situation?” Jeno had to ask; it felt so out of place. The one that seemed irritated exhaled before replying to Jeno. “This guy” he gives a pointed look to the tall, childish man “is so fascinated by Kun’s magic tricks we haven’t left this room! I was kidnapped and all he wants to do is look at cards!” So maybe this guy was reasonably upset.

Jaemin asks the same question as the 3 before, “Who are you guys? What are your talents? I’m Jaemin and.. I can’t remember my talent right now, but these guys do.” He looks upset again; maybe he was hoping he wouldn’t be the only one that forgot. If Jeno was looking at the situation objectively, Jaemin was pretty suspicious. Jeno wanted to trust the pink haired boy though.

The tall guy perks up, looking at Jaemin “I’m Lucas! The ultimate model.” he gives a wink, finishing his introduction. It seems his attention was finally away from Kun’s cards.

“I’m Kun. I didn’t mean to stay here for so long, but Lucas was really interested in my tricks.. I’m the ultimate magician.” Well that fits, Jeno thinks. Kun places his cards back into his left jacket pocket.

“You can call me Ten. I’m the ultimate photographer.” Ten sharply says, still annoyed seemingly. His talent matches with Lucas’s; maybe if they met under different circumstances, they could work together? It’s kind of a cute thought.

Kun looks over everyone before saying “So there’s 8 of us? I wonder how the kidnapper pulled this off..”

“Yeah, and there could be more. We need to check the room to the left of here.” Jaemin says, probably hoping to get out of the room before Lucas asks to see more magic tricks.

“I knew there’d be more people here.. let’s go.” Ten sighs, pushing past everyone, leaving the room. At least we’re getting things done, Jeno thinks. He follows after the photographer, attempting to catch up.

The last door in the hall adorns the label “Faculty Office”. Ten pushes the door open, seemingly not thinking of any consequences. Maybe being here with the seven of them was consequence enough for him.

Jeno hears two more voices as soon as the door swings open.

“Why would we just hide here? Shouldn’t we look for help-“ a small boy in a hoodie jumps at the door opening. Jeno can’t help but feel bad for startling the boy, even though he’s just as scared right now. Another boy pops up from under the desk, meeting Jeno’s eyes.

“How’d you guys get in here? Who are you?” Jeno is confused at the first question before he sees the small file cabinet tipped over that must have been in front of the door before Ten pushed it open. He gives Ten a “whoa” look, to which the man simply shrugs. 

Jeno turns back to the two boys hiding under the desk; it was pretty clear they were also victims. God, that’s ten now. Why are there so many of them here?

“Were you two also attending Hope’s Peak?” Jeno has gotten used to asking the question at this point.

The small boy that was still under the desk got up, dusting off his pants, before responding. “Yep; I’m Renjun. The ultimate cartoon artist. We both just woke up in this office.” Jeno knew about Renjun’s work; he had heard the name before, seen it in credits of animations he watched. His work was amazing, especially for his age.

The other boy nods before saying “And I’m Donghyuck. The ultimate tarot card reader. Before you ask, no, I didn’t predict this.” Jeno wasn’t going to ask that. He didn’t even know how tarot cards worked. Maybe he could learn more about it later. But first order of business; getting the hell out of here.

Jaemin nodded along, seeming to consider everything that was said before he spoke up himself “Okay, there was one last door; at the end of the hallway. Now that we’ve found everyone, we should all head there.” Everyone nods in agreement, leaving the office. Jeno was really glad everyone was seeming to get along for the most part. They could work together, and leave.. it seemed so easy.

They quickly made their way down the hallway; Jeno, who was in front, opened the double doors, after reading the label atop them “Gym”. He.. didn’t expect what he saw when he opened the doors.

Six. Six more people that looked to be around Jeno’s age. What was going on here?? How could someone set all this up? And they weren’t just any students; they were students of Hope’s Peak Academy. A prestigious school for the elite. How were they targeted and kidnapped? He doubted these new people would have answers, but he asked them the same question regardless.

A tall guy with attractive features foreign to Jeno spoke first “I’m Johnny; ultimate tour guide. I didn’t think there’d be so many more of us.. what do you think’s happening here?” Johnny looks deep in thought, another guy speaking up while he does so.

“Hey, I’m Mark. I’m just the skateboarder.. no idea how I ended up here.” He scratches the back of his head, mindlessly. Definitely no answers here. Jeno knew of Mark though; he’d always thought Mark was so cool, being able to use a skateboard like it was some kind of artistic tool. It was admirable, even to those without an interest in skateboarding.

“I’m Jaehyun. I travelled here from Chicago; I’m the ultimate basketball player.” The tall man keeps his introduction brief, looking over everyone that had just entered the room. Jeno wasn’t very into sports, but even he had heard of Jung Jaehyun. He was the ace of his team; a team that had never lost a single game since Jaehyun had joined.

“And I’m Taeil.. the ultimate vocalist. I’m just like everyone else here; same story, exactly the same.” It sounded suspicious, but he was probably just nervous. Jeno couldn’t blame him; after all, he felt the same in front of Taeil. Taeil was basically a celebrity. He had a dreamy singing voice, one everyone’s heard at least once and appreciated. He definitely deserved the title of ultimate vocalist.

An attractive man with sharp features spoke next “I’m Taeyong.. the ultimate homemaker.” He spoke sheepishly, seemingly embarrassed about his talent. Jeno honestly thought it was pretty cool; he had heard of all the feats Taeyong had achieved as a homemaker, and it was nothing to be shy about.

The last person speaks, a soft voice that immediately grabs Jeno’s attention. “I’m Jungwoo. The ultimate asmrtist.. you know of asmr, yes?” Jeno only knows the basics of it; it just means like soothing sounds, right? He can’t say he’s heard of Jungwoo, but it made sense that the man was skilled in asmr. He must be really popular in the community if he’s known as the ultimate asmrtist.

So.. 16 students of Hope’s Peak Academy. All trapped in a school. So is this school Hope’s Peak? But it can’t be.. why are the windows like this? Jeno had been right in front of the school just before he woke up, and the windows were totally normal.

Johnny breaks the silence first. “I think.. no, I’m sure. We’re in Hope’s Peak Academy. I don’t know why it looks like this, but this has to be it.”

Ten rolls his eyes and says “There’s no way. I was here right before I woke up in this place. You think I wouldn’t have noticed steel fucking plates over the windows?”  
“Recall my talent.”  
“What, the ultimate.. tour guide?”  
“Yes, a tour guide. I know exactly what Hope’s Peak looked like, inside and out. Of course, this is my first time seeing steel plates, but everything else is exactly the same.”

Everyone looks a little stunned, including Jeno. What had happened to the school everyone dreamed of attending?

“Maybe we’re in like.. a fucked up replica?” Yuta offers, but no one seems to agree.

“I guess that’s possible but for now we should assume we’re inside the Hope’s Peak.” Johnny concludes. No one speaks up after that, probably all thinking about everything like Jeno is. He just couldn’t understand.. anything.

Then, it happened. If Jeno thought he didn’t understand anything before, then…

“Hey, give me your attention students!” Everyone searched for the source of the voice. It was high-pitched and childlike, grating to Jeno’s ears.

The large screen on the far wall of the gym had turned on. There was a shadow displayed.. that looked vaguely like it had ears? What was this thing?

“You all listening? Good! I’d like to be the first, and the only, to welcome you to Hope’s Peak Academy!”

.. So this was just a messed up opening ceremony? Wait… the only?

“Although, things are a bittttt different this year. And you lucky 16 were selected!”

Finally, one of them speaks up. “What are you talking about? Why can’t we leave?!” Doyoung says it, his hand hovering over his pants pocket. He must have the knife there. Not much use against a screen, though.

“Can I finish speaking? Students are so disrespectful.”

The voice pauses then, seeming to challenge anyone else to speak. Everyone seemed to shocked to do so.

“Anyways, you can’t get out.. yet. If you play along, you can get out, just like that! But first, you have to beat the game!”

The voice stops yet again. Should Jeno hurry it up?

“So, what’s this game?” 

The response is immediate. “Why I’m glad you asked! The only way to leave this school.. is to kill each other.” The previously high-pitched voice gets ominously low.

Kill… the word itself was enough to make Jeno’s blood run cold. But followed by ‘each other’? He must be dreaming. Everyone else is in a stunned silence and for a couple seconds he can pretend this really is a dream, and everything’s okay. But then the voice is back, just as irritating as before.

“What, is that not a good deal? You don’t even know each other! Just put a knife in ‘em and be done with it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!” 

Jeno shudders at the casual talk of death. And they used a knife as their example.. did they know? He glanced at Doyoung quickly to see his body shaking. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t want people to suspect Doyoung.

“I should probably say this before you kids just start killing each other… there’s a catch! If Doyoung could just stab a weakling like Taeyong then the game would end too soon! No, you have to do more than just kill; you have to get away with it.” The voice grows ominous again.

How did that person know their names? How did they know Doyoung had the knife? So much for Doyoung not looking suspicious.

Taeyong shoots Doyoung an uneasy look before saying “W-what do you mean the game would end?” 

The voice laughs a bit, seemingly pleased that Taeyong had asked the question. “It’d just end! If Doyoung here got away with murder, he’d just up and leave! And only one of you is getting out…”

Taeyong visibly shivers and closes his mouth. Jeno doesn’t think he’ll be speaking again for a while. What did the voice mean by that? If they couldn’t catch the killer then…? Would they all die? Or just be stuck here until they eventually die? Both great options.

Renjun shouts at the screen “Only one of us? What the hell do you mean?” For a tiny kid, he had a lot of courage.

“I guess I just have to explain everything now then, huh? Let’s say Doyoung kills Taeyong. Stabs him to pieces! Then, I’ll give you all time to investigate, as the gracious person I am, and we’ll hold a class trial! If you all can’t find out who did it… you’re all going to die, and Doyoung gets to leave. Howeverrr, if you kids do manage to figure it out, then Doyoung will be the one to die. You guys will just be stuck here though until someone kills again! The killing game just keeps going and going!”

Jeno feels sick; a worse pain than when he tries to remember what happened. And he feels that pain throughout his whole body, not just his head. 

Everyone is just.. silent.. frozen..

“Oh come on, perk up! It’s okay, I know just what kids like you need to get started. A motive!”

No one speaks. We were all just so exhausted by all of.. this.. Was this really our lives now? A.. killing game? Who was responsible for this?

“It doesn’t matter what motive you give us. We wouldn’t.. we couldn’t kill each other! We’ll find another way to leave.” Johnny speaks up, standing in front of everyone. 

“You all aren’t a very fun lot, are you? Well then, how’s this for a motive? If someone isn’t dead within 48 hours, I end the game! And you all know what that means, don’t you?”

This.. wasn’t even fair. Someone was going to die, no matter what. No, they had to find something before those 48 hours. They had to.

“Have fun kids! Also, you might wanna check that door that was locked earlier.. just a tip! Bye-bye!” And just like that, the screen turns off, leaving the 16 students alone. Alone with nothing but fear and mistrust.


	2. Chapter 1- Daily Life

“..What.. what was that? Who was that?” Kun starts, clearly wanting to talk to everyone before anything.. happened. That wouldn’t happen though, right?

“Do you think it’s… one of us?” Everyone looks shocked at what Doyoung had said. Why was he..?

“What do you mean? Why would you think that?” Kun looks confused at the suggestion; was that supposed to be some kind of joke?

“I.. look, I found this earlier.” Doyoung opens his pocket, taking out the knife.

“If that thing isn’t one of us, how did they know I had this knife?”   
“You haven’t noticed? Doyoung, look up and to the right.” Johnny states, pointing to the upper right corner of the ceiling. Oh that’s…

“A camera?”  
“Yeah, I’ve seen a bunch of them around. Anyone with access to the footage of those cameras could’ve seen you take it. But the more important question is.. why did you take a knife?”

Jeno wanted to avoid this.. this suspicion. He knows why Doyoung took it; in case they ran into their kidnappers.

Doyoung speaks for himself, though. “I just found it! In the break room.. I woke up there. I took the knife thinking I could use it against my kidnappers! Doesn’t look like that’ll be the case though.” Right. The screen.

“We should leave it somewhere no one can access. We can’t trust each other right now.” Jaehyun says. He’s right; Jeno wants to trust everyone, but he knows Jaehyun’s right.

“I don’t think there’s any place like that though.. why don’t I hold onto it?” The suggestion comes from Donghyuck.

“Hey, hold on.. you could use it against us. How can we trust you with it?” Taeil looks suspicious, arms crossed against his chest.

“Look, if I have it and someone is stabbed.. wouldn’t I be the most likely suspect? Why would I do that? There’s no way I’d get away with it.” He has a point. And it’s true that there’s no place they could safely put the knife. Besides… there are other ways… someone could kill someone. Jeno tries not to think about that and agrees with Donghyuck.

“He’s right.. we don’t have much of a choice.” Doyoung hesitates before handing the knife to the smaller boy, which he pockets immediately. 

He sees everyone’s suspicion and quickly says “Just trust me, okay? Anyways, don’t you guys feel tired? Where are we supposed to sleep?”

“You want to sleep? We have to look for an escape!” Ten says this, but Jeno can tell he’s extremely tired.

“Look, some of us are too tired to do any kind of investigating. We have 48 hours, we can afford a quick rest.” Jaehyun reasons.

“Ah, isn’t that other door unlocked? Maybe there will be rooms past there?” Taeyong offers, still slightly shaking. 

“Good idea. Let’s all walk together for now.” Johnny leads everyone to the door, some of the group keeping an eye on Donghyuck.

Jeno started to notice cameras throughout the hallway, remembering with Johnny had said. He also noticed Lucas hadn’t said anything since the voice told them about.. everything. Maybe he was still in shock. He dragged his feet to catch up with everyone, eyes not meeting anyone.

When they reached the door, Johnny didn’t hesitate to pull it open.

“8 doors, 4 on each side.” Sicheng quickly assessed. 

“Hey, these labels have our names on them.” Yuta, who had stayed near the front of the group, stated.

“Yeah.. there’s two on each door. Does this mean we have roommates?” Kun wonders aloud.

“Great. So who do I have the pleasure of staying with.” Ten deadpans. His face has been in a constant scowl.

“You’re in the first one.. looks like you’re with Doyoung.”  
“Are you fucking kidding me? Who picked these assignments? I’ll sleep wherever the hell I want!” 

Doyoung looks pissed at the outburst. “It’s just for a night. I don’t even have the knife anymore, remember? Not that I would use it.”

Ten backs down pretty easily. He’s visibly exhausted. “Fine. I definitely don’t plan on staying in the hellhole longer than a night.” Ten quickly walks in the room assigned to him. Doyoung chases after him, then closes the door behind them. Jeno can’t help but feel a little worried, though he knows he shouldn’t.

Johnny moves on to the next door, reading off the label. “Next one is.. Jaemin and Lucas.” Jeno can’t help but feel a tinge of disappointment. He’s been with Jaemin the whole time and felt comfortable with him. Lucas makes no reaction still, not glancing at Jaemin. 

Jaemin turns to Jeno then and says “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?” He gives a smile, something Jeno hasn’t seen from anyone in a while. He smiles back, in a hopefully reassuring way. With that, Jaemin leaves with a straggling Lucas in tow. 

“What was that all about?” Yuta is quick to jump on Jeno after his interaction with Jaemin.

“Come on, we can talk about that later. I want to get to sleep.” With that, Johnny moves to the third door on the left side. “Next is Renjun and Mark.” 

They simply nod, going into the room. They were too tired to do any more.

“And the last one on the left is.. Taeil and Sicheng.” Taeil slightly smiles at the dancer before walking into their room. Taeil seems like he’d be a cool roommate. Suddenly, Jeno feels worried for who he might end up with. 

Johnny walks to the room opposite Taeil’s and Sicheng’s. “Kun and Yuta are in this one.” Neither says anything; they seem like a weird combo. When they disappear into the room, Johnny moves on.

“Jungwoo and Jaehyun, this one’s yours.” Jaehyun was lucky; maybe Jungwoo could sing him to sleep or something. They silently walk into the room, leaving only Johnny, Taeyong, Donghyuck, and Jeno left.

“And Donghyuck and Jeno are in this one. I guess this means you and me are in the last one.” He says, looking at Taeyong.

Taeyong nods with a sleepy smile and goes ahead into the room. Johnny follows after, leaving Jeno with Donghyuck. The guy with the knife. What kind of ultimate lucky student was Jeno?

Donghyuck seems to notice Jeno’s worry when he makes no move to enter the room. “Come on. Don’t you remember what I said? How stupid do you think I am?”

Jeno feels a little bad for suspecting him. He was the one who agreed in the first place. “Yeah, sorry.. let’s head in.” He was curious to see what the rooms looked like. Even if they’d only be staying in them for a night..

It was a nice, simple room. Two single beds and a small table in between them. It looked clean, but empty. He could assume the other rooms were the same, but he should check some others out in the morning. His attention is drawn to Donghyuck when he hears him plop onto the rightmost bed. 

“Hey I’ve been curious.. what exactly does your talent mean?” 

Donghyuck looks like he was expecting the question, and turns to face Jeno in bed. He pulls out a deck of cards from his right pants pocket. The knife must be in the left…

“I can tell the future.” He says it in a lilting voice; almost like he’s teasing Jeno.

“Wh-what? With those cards?”  
“Yeah, sort of. Come here.” He pats the spot on the bed next to him. He knows he has a knife, but, like he said previously, it’d be pretty obvious Donghyuck was the culprit if he killed Jeno here. He makes his way over to the other bed, looking at the cards in Donghyuck’s hand. They definitely weren’t normal cards.

He shuffles the cards in his hands, closing his eyes. When he opens them again, he speaks.

“There are 78 cards. We can just focus on 22 of them for now though. They’re the major arcana cards.” He looks to Jeno for confirmation to keep going, to which Jeno nods slowly.

“I can get a sense of how your future will play out.” He places 3 cards face-down. “See these cards? The one on the left represents your happiness. The one in the middle represents your success. And the right one represents your romantic life.” He finishes with a slight smirk.

Romantic?? “Hey, what does that have to do with anything?” Jeno fumbles at the mention of romance; he’s never even dated anyone.

Donghyuck seems pleased with the reaction. “Relax, it’s just for fun!” He flips over the left card. The card faces Donghyuck, and has a.. guy on it? Jeno can’t really tell since it’s facing opposite him.

Donghyuck pauses. “That’s the strength card but.. it’s reversed. That means emotionally..” Donghyuck trails off and Jeno can piece it together. He’s not sure he really believes this card reading stuff though so it doesn’t really affect him.

“It’s cool.. keep going.” Donghyuck nods briefly and lifts the card in the middle. This card faces Jeno, bearing a wheel in the middle.

Donghyuck perks up at the sight of it. “Oh, that’s the wheel of fortune! Pretty fitting for the ultimate luck.” His smile returns to his face, and it makes Jeno feel better. 

“That’s pretty cool.. I think I’m gonna get some sleep now.”  
“Hey! Are you trying to get out of your romantic reading? That’s an important part, you know!” He says it jokingly, and Jeno begrudgingly stays seated.

“Alright alright, let’s see it.” Donghyuck eagerly flips the card over; he could be pretty childish. A card bearing the word ‘Justice’ at the bottom faces Jeno.

“Huh? What does that mean?”

Donghyuck appears lost in thought.

“Hmm.. that’s weird. You’re a weird guy.”   
“What?! I don’t even know what that means!”  
“Hey I’m just teasing.. it’s not bad. This card usually gives a hint about your partner.. justice just isn’t common for it.”  
“Huh..” Jeno thinks about everyone’s talents. None of them really fit that. Although, no one knew Jaemin’s talent.. wait, who said he’d date someone here? Jeno needs sleep and he needs it bad.

“We should go to bed.. something tells me we’ll have a long day tomorrow.” Jeno gets up, plopping himself down into his own bed.

Donghyuck yawns and nods sleepily. Jeno can’t help but find it kind of cute. Now let’s just hope he doesn’t stab him in his sleep.

 

“Hey, everyone’s waiting! Get up sleepy head.” Jeno wills himself awake when he hears Donghyuck’s voice.

“Everyone’s.. waiting?” Jeno rubs at his eyes, slowly rising from his bed.

“Yeah, let’s hurry up. The sooner you get up, the sooner we can get out of here.” With those words, Jeno remembers everything that transpired yesterday. He thinks if it was a dream, he’d be able to tell by now. He tries not to dwell on the thought though; they could- no, they would definitely get out today.

With this newfound determination, Jeno jumps out of bed. “Right! Ok, let’s go.” 

The first thing Jeno sees when he leaves his room is Jaemin. 

Jaemin smiles instantly. “Hey, I told the others I’d wait for you. Didn’t think you’d be such a heavy sleeper.” He teases.

“Ah.. haha sorry about that. Did you guys already get started?”  
“Yeah, Johnny said we should wait for everyone but most of them started looking around anyways. I wanna start looking to, but I need a partner.” He gives Jeno a wink that makes Jeno’s heart race. Why did he have to meet someone like Jaemin in a place like this..?

“Oh, yeah! Yeah I can do that..” Jeno can hear Donghyuck stifle a giggle from behind him. This could be tricky if Donghyuck tagged along..

“I’m gonna go on ahead then.” Donghyuck gives Jeno a failed attempt at a wink before running off.

“He seems like fun.” Jaemin says, still smiling.  
“Yeah, he’s something.. how was your roommate?”  
“Lucas? Well, I think he’s feeling more like himself again.. you’ll see what I mean when we run into him.”

“Anyways, let’s meet up with the others. They probably found some stuff while I was waiting for you.” Jeno follows Jaemin past the door, into the hallway where Jeno woke up. 

“Hey Jeno! You’re up!” Johnny, who was standing in the hallway with Jungwoo greeted him. Jungwoo smiled at him and beckoned him over.

“Hey.. you guys find anything?”  
“Not really, but we have an idea of the layout of the area we’re in. The gym is on one end, the rooms we slept in last night on the other. There’s two classrooms to the left of where we are now, and three rooms on the right. The break room, the store, and the faculty office.”  
“Yeah, Jaemin and I went in all those rooms yesterday, but we didn’t think to search them at the time.” Johnny nods, then continues.

“Jungwoo and I are keeping watch out here. If you wanna see what the others found, you can check the rooms.”  
“Cool, thanks!” It was really nice having Johnny here. No one else was taking the initiative. They’d be a wreck without him.

Jaemin nudges him then. “I think we should check out the break room first. That’s where the knife was, remember?” Jeno nods, going to the right and opening the break room door.

It’s a pretty typical break room; a vending machine, a couple tables with chairs, and a coffee machine. Currently, Mark and Renjun are looking around.

When Mark notices them, he says “Oh hey guys! You can search here too, but I don’t think you’ll find anything else. We’ve searched the place top and bottom. It’s just a normal break room.”

“Then what’s this?” Jeno and Mark turn to see Jaemin kneeling in the corner. He gets up, giving them a view of… blood? Why is there a bloodstain in the corner?

Mark gasps at the sight “Whoa! Bro I swear I didn’t see that before! You neither, right Renjun?” He looked genuinely surprised. Jeno thinks Mark shouldn’t be trusted to investigate alone.

Renjun’s eyes widen when he sees the dried blood. “Yeah.. that’s creepy. Who’s blood could that be?” 

Jaemin shakes his head “No idea, but it’s pretty old. Probably not anyone we know.” Jeno gulps.

“Yeah.. let’s check the room one more time.” Jeno doesn’t trust that there isn’t more that Mark might’ve missed.

After searching for a good 10 minutes, they come up empty-handed. Everything but the bloodstain is totally clean. The coffee machine works, but they had no money to see if the vending machine worked.

“Jeno, let’s check the store next.” He agrees quickly; if Jaemin says there’s nothing left here, he’s probably right. That bloodstain was so tiny, and Jaemin had discovered it immediately.

“We’ll stay here just in case we missed something.” Renjun says, but Jeno gets the impression he doesn’t wanna do more work. He leaves anyways, following Jaemin into the store. 

Jeno hadn’t noticed before because of the commotion with Lucas, Ten, and Kun but the store was well stocked with various goods. Stuff like small snacks, books, and school supplies. Nothing they could use to escape, probably.

Kun, Sicheng, and Yuta are looking around the store. Jeno chooses to talk to Kun first.

“You find anything that could help us?” Kun smiles at Jeno upon hearing his voice, then takes a moment to think.

“It looks like a normal store, but there are some items that could be used as.. weapons. We’ll get out of here before anything like that can happen though, so I wouldn’t worry about it.” Kun’s confidence may look a little forced, but Jeno tries to ignore it.

“Yeah, for sure.. what kind of weapons though?” Jeno can’t help but worry about it.

Sicheng seems to overhear them then and comes over.

“They’re over here.” He then starts walking back to the left of the room, Jeno and Kun following behind.

“It’s not much but.. there’s these really small pocket knifes and some rope. Though if someone wanted to strangle someone, they wouldn’t need rope to do it-“  
“Sicheng! We’re getting out of here, remember? Stop thinking about stuff like that.”  
“Right… sorry, Kun.” And Sicheng does sound genuinely sorry. Still, Jeno was unable to get the image out of his head...

“It’s fine, I just want you to remember that. And Jeno, these pocket knives aren’t anything to worry about. It looks like they were slightly modified. They’re only a bit more effective than a butter knife.”

Jeno looks closer at one of the knives on display. Yep, it was more blunt than a typical one. Maybe the person behind this wanted things to be more difficult. 

“Still, isn’t this stuff kinda weird for a school store? It seems out of place.”  
“Yeah… but this store has some weird stuff so maybe it’s not so out of place. Jeno, you should ask Yuta about that. Sicheng and I will look around here more.”

Jeno nods, walking to the right side of the room, where he finds Yuta talking to Jaemin in the back.  
Jaemin looks relieved to see him; Jeno speeds up, standing by Jaemin’s side.

“What happened? Kun told me you found some uh- weird stuff.”

Yuta looks off to the side, seemingly annoyed; had Jeno interrupted something maybe?

“Why don’t you ask Jaemin? I’m leaving.”  
“Huh? I-“  
“I don’t feel like repeating myself. Later.”  
“It’s fine, I remember everything he told me. Let’s just leave him be.”

Jeno admits defeat then; but really, what was up with him? He wouldn’t be approaching Yuta without Jaemin in the future.

“Ok, so what’d he find?”  
“Well, you know how we all- well, excluding me, have talents?”  
“Hey, don’t say that. You just forgot; if you’re here with us, you must be an ultimate something.”

Jaemin smiles brightly at his words. “You’re right… I must have been the ultimate pretty student.”

“Hey, could be!”  
“Well, nope… how could I be when you’re here?”

?!?!?!

“Uh-“  
“So anyways, we found things relating to everyone’s talent throughout the store. I guess so we can work on our craft.”

So, did Jaemin just want a reaction?? He definitely got one.

“...Yeah, probably. Oh, did you find anything that might tell what your talent is?”  
“Nope, nothing… Do you wanna know what kinda stuff is here though?”  
“Yeah, it might come in handy.”  
“Ok well… there were different kinds of tarot cards, some skateboards, some sports.. balls..”

Jeno raises an eyebrow at the term but urges Jaemin to continue.

“I’ll just move onto the stuff that could help us. There was a map- I’m guessing because of Johnny- of the first floor of Hope’s Peak. Only the first floor though.”

Jaemin hands Jeno the map; but it’s-

“Hey uh, what’s up with this map? It looks like it was drawn by a child.”  
“Yeah, weird right? Based on what we’ve seen so far though, it seems like it’s correct. Just... hard to read.”  
“Yeah… it’ll help at least. So, what else?”  
“There’s a camera that actually works here. We should give it to Ten; it looks nice.”

Jeno fumbles at the mention of Ten.

“A-are you sure that’s a good idea? I don’t know that he’d appreciate it.”  
“Don’t worry, I’ll go with you.” He smirks a bit, but Jeno still feels reassured.

“Well that’s nice for Ten, but will it actually help?”  
“I think it could. It definitely looks more helpful than the other stuff here.”

Jeno takes a look around. There were a lot of mics; that made sense though, considering three of the people here had talents using the tool. Wait, what’s that?

He waited for Jaemin to say something, but he stayed silent. He fidgeted in place, not meeting Jeno’s eyes. Why was thing making him so uncomfortable? It was pretty ugly but…

“I don’t remember Hope’s Peak having such a cheesy mascot.” Nope, that didn’t help. This is why his friends called him no fun.

“Jeno, do you trust me?” ...Where did that come from? Jeno trusted everyone here to an extent. He had to. But Jaemin… he had no doubts. Even with the memory loss, he didn’t doubt him.

“Yes.”  
“Have you noticed anything about that plush?”

Jeno takes a closer look. The plushie had a line through the middle of it. The left half was white and the right was black. On the left side of it was half of a cute face. On the right side, the push had a wide open mouth with razorsharp teeth; scary maybe, but tacky. The eye on the right side was red and almost looked like it was glowing. It was almost.. robotic. On top of its head, there were.. bear ears? Bear ears…

“It’s the same shape as the silhouette we saw on screen. And it’s with all the other talent-related stuff…”

Jeno finally realizes why Jaemin had suddenly asked if he trusted him. There were no objects for Jaemin as far as they could see. The only thing was…

“It was probably just put here to make us suspect each other. I still trust you… after all, if you were behind all this, this would be a pretty stupid mistake.”  
“But I don’t even know my talent! What if it is related to me?”  
“Jaemin, I trust you. I’m not gonna let a misplaced stuffed animal get in the way of that.”

With that, Jaemin finally seems to relax.

“Thank you.”

They both stand in silence for a while. Jeno takes the chance to look around for something relating to him. But...

“Hey, there’s nothing here for me either. Do you trust me?”  
“Ohh so you finally noticed. Actually, there was something. Just this though.” Jaemin holds out a four leaf clover. Why was he holding onto that?

“Don’t you have enough luck? I think I’ll hold onto this.” Jaemin smiles before putting it gently back into his pocket.

“That’s fair… and you’ve already had some bad luck. You could use that more than me.”  
“Exactly.”

Jaemin having the four leaf clover actually makes Jeno feel better. He’s never believed in stuff like that but still… 

“There’s one more room on this side. Let’s check the faculty office.”

Jeno looks out for Ten on the way, but doesn’t see him. He clutches on to the camera, opening the door to the faculty office.

“Jaemin!!”

A large body pushes past Jeno and rushes to Jaemin. He nearly topples over at the large weight sprung on him. Lucas was back to being how he was before the thing at the gym then. While Jeno didn’t like seeing him depressed, this was a bit…

“Hi Lucas.. how’s the search?”  
“I couldn’t find anything but Doyoung found some stuff!”

When he hears his name, Doyoung lifts his head up from where he must’ve been searching. He walks around the desk, stopping in front of Jeno.

“There was a key in the desk drawer. I don’t know what it’s for but we should definitely hold onto it.”  
“Oh, nice! Maybe it’ll open the exit!”

Lucas eagerly agrees, but Jaemin and Doyoung keep silent. 

“...Maybe. You should hold onto it Jeno.” Doyoung drops the key in Jeno’s hands.

“Yeah, sure… Jaemin, do you wanna check out the classrooms before the gym?”  
“I wanna come!”  
“Wait, I don’t wanna be alone… I’ll come with too.”

With that, the four of them head out into the hallway. Jeno goes to the door labelled 1-A but is stopped by Johnny who was still standing in the middle with Jungwoo.

“Hey, Jungwoo and I already checked those top to bottom. They’re just normal classrooms. You know, minus the steel plates over the windows.”  
“We were waiting for you to finish actually. We’re all supposed to meet in the gym after we finished searching.” 

Jeno nods at both of them, following Johnny’s lead. 

When they enter the gym, the first thing Jeno hears is yelling.

“You found nothing?!”  
“Uh, nothing to help us escape…”  
“Maybe if you helped search, then-“  
“Fuck you! I better not be stuck here with you morons!”

He first heard a shrieking accusation from Ten, then a meek reply from Mark, then an irritated voice from Donghyuck. They were all stuck here… He’s acting like he’s the only one affected by all this.

Doyoung is the first one to say something after the argument.

“Hey, shut the hell up. I found this key. You give up awfully fast.”  
“Really?! There’s a door on the opposite side of where you came in from. It’s probably for that door!”

Donghyuck’s eyes shined when he saw the key. God, if Jeno was truly lucky, please let this be an exit…

Doyoung goes over to unlock the door, everyone following close behind. Ten doesn’t say anything; hasn’t said anything since Doyoung spoke.

The door slowly opens. He thinks back to the rooms he’s been in so far. They were nice and well-kept, but this room was… extravagant. It was a pretty empty room, but the lavish lighting and red rugs made up for it.

“Wow…”  
“Is this a ballroom? Did Hope’s Peak always have something like that?”  
“Yes, this was originally part of the design plan. It’s an elite school; they had to hold parties somewhere. There’s something off though… Why is this located here? It feels out of place on this floor.”

Johnny answers Jaemin’s question and more. He really knew his stuff as the ultimate tour guide. What could he mean by “out of place on this floor” though?

“Hey, there’s one more door! Let’s keep going.” Johnny is the first to spot it; he rushes over to it, everyone following.

Jeno allowed himself to hope one more time. But…

“Oh… it’s just a kitchen.”  
“Can we even trust the food here? I’m starving but-“

“Fuck!”

Renjun is cut off by a yell. Everyone looks to the source of the noise. Jeno isn’t surprised it came from Ten.

“There’s no other doors! How are we supposed to get out?!”

Jeno looks around the room in a panic. He was right… no exits to be found anywhere. Was Jeno ready to prepare for the worst…?

“There might not be a door to escape from, but it’s good that we found the ballroom. We can all hide out here; when the 48 hours are up, we’ll just defeat the guy behind this. It’s 16 versus 1!”

Jeno finds himself letting out a sigh of relief. Johnny.. Jeno was so glad he was here. He was right, they had to stay positive. If they were all together, they could easily overpower one guy. 

They all walk back into the ballroom. The kitchen was too small for all of them to be in at once.

“How much time do we have left? There’s no way to tell…”

Just as Kun says this, multiple buzzes go off at the same time. Jeno feels his pocket vibrate. He finds… a smartphone? It’s not his… When did this get in his pocket?

Everyone seems to find the same thing. Jeno hesitatingly tries to turn his on. There’s no time and date, and the wallpaper is pitch black. The screen lights up, displaying nothing but the numbers ‘25:12’. As Jeno is looking at it, it counts down. It’s pretty safe to assume what the numbers mean.

“Is this thing just to tell us the time? Couldn’t we just have like a clock?” Mark plays with the phone, but Jeno’s already tried everything.

“For now at least, this is all it does.” Jeno replies.

“25 hours is a while… are we really gonna stay here the whole time?” Taeyong asks.

“Well there’s a kitchen here… as long as we have food we’re fine. We should try not to split up.”

Jungwoo nods at what Johnny says and with that, the matter seems settled. They just had 25 hours… in this room. Together.

Jeno finds himself walking to Jaemin’s side. Lucas is already there of course… How did Jaemin get him like that? He wants to ask what had happened but he doesn’t count on being alone with Jaemin within these 25 hours. Not with Lucas clinging on to him like that.

“Jaemin, do you want to check out the kitchen?”   
“Yeah, good idea. You’re in luck, too; I’m a great cook.” Jaemin smiles, already heading towards the kitchen. Lucas quickly follows after, looking excited to finally get something to eat. Maybe Jaemin would turn out to be like the ultimate cook. 

The kitchen isn’t quite as nice as the ballroom, but it’s decent. There’s a dining table, but there were only 10 chairs around it. There were plenty of ingredients stocked in the fridge and pantry. Who was maintaining this stuff? What happens when they run out?

...They would be getting out within 25 hours though, so there was nothing to worry about, even with 16 people.

“What do you guys want? There’s a lot of stuff here, so request whatever.”  
“Can you make spicy beef enchiladas?!”  
“Um- any other requests?”

Jeno laughs a bit at the exchange before saving Jaemin.

“How about a salad?”  
“Yeah, that won’t take too long. And I’m starving.”

As Jaemin gets to work, Jeno suddenly remembers the camera he’s been holding onto. He was a bit scared to approach Ten alone, but he also didn’t want to drag Jaemin into it.

“I’ll be right back!” He says, heading into the ballroom. Lucas seems too focused on what Jaemin’s doing to respond, but Jaemin waves at him as he leaves the kitchen.

When he enters the ballroom, the mood seems pretty down. Johnny and Taeyong are having a conversation, but everyone else is sitting far away from each other, seemingly lost in thought. He finds Ten sitting along the wall with the kitchen door. He lets out a breath before making his way over to the photographer.

“Hey, Ten..? Jaemin and I found this camera in the store and it uh- it works just fine, so…” Jeno doesn’t usually stutter like this, but Ten’s presence makes him feel just a bit weaker.

Ten lifts his head and scrunches his eyebrows at Jeno.

“From the store? Let me see.” He holds a hand out to which Jeno gives him the camera as carefully as possible.

He looks over all the sides, and brings it to his face to test out. Jeno just thought it seemed like a normal camera, but Ten could probably figure out more about it just by a glance.

“This is a pretty good model… has no place in this shitfest.”  
“That’s cool… I’m gonna go back to the kitchen now.”  
“Jeno.”  
“Y-yeah?” God what now.  
“Get in front of the camera. I want to test something.”

Jeno doesn’t hesitate to comply. He gives a small smile to the camera, then relaxes as he hears a click.

“Hmm… okay, that’s all I needed. I’ll keep this.”  
“Yeah, that’s fine! Bye!”

Jeno walks away faster than he means to. Could he really be blamed though?

He looks around the room again before re-entering the kitchen. Maybe he should try to talk with some other people here. He couldn’t just rely on Jaemin, after all.

He makes his way over to Johnny and Taeyong. They were nearby and something about Johnny just made him… approachable. Taeyong looked scary but he’s been nice so far.

Johnny seems to see him approaching and calls out to him first.

“Hey Jeno! Everything okay in the kitchen?”  
“Yeah, Jaemin’s making salad right now.”  
“Oh, I was just saying to Johnny I’d make something in a second. Do you remember my talent, Jeno?”  
“The ultimate homemaker?” Ohhh.  
“Yep. I could make something for everyone here. Tell Jaemin I’ll take over when he doesn’t want to cook anymore, okay?”  
“Yeah, sure. You might wanna talk to Lucas. I heard he has a very specific request.”

And maybe Lucas will cling onto someone else, Jeno thinks. It seems a bit selfish the moment Jeno thinks it. He was glad Lucas was back to being the oversized puppy he was, even if he couldn’t talk to Jaemin as much.

Taeyong laughs a bit at what Jeno says.

“Very specific, huh? I’m sure I can handle it.” Taeyong smiles and Jeno can see Johnny lightly blushing out of the corner of his eye. Didn’t take long for Johnny to be whipped, but Jeno soon realizes he’s in no position to speak. 

He couldn’t really blame Johnny anyways. Taeyong had really pretty face. If he told Jeno he was the ultimate attractive person, Jeno wouldn’t even blink.

Jeno realizes it’s his turn to say something, since Johnny is still seemingly unable to speak.

“Can you really make anything?”  
“Well, it depends on what we have here but… I’m sure I can work with what we have anyways.”  
“It’s pretty well stocked actually. Looked like there was a lot of different stuff.”  
“Well stocked? I gotta say, our kidnapper is kind of sending us mixed signals.”

Jeno takes a bit to think about what Johnny had said. It’s true… first they say we have to kill each other then they give us access to all this food? Well… it’d be no fun if we just starved to death.

When Jeno considers it from the kidnapper’s perspective, it makes sense. In a pretty twisted way.

“Yeah… let’s just consider ourselves lucky.” Taeyong says quickly, seemingly not wanting to overthink it. Jeno has to agree; thinking from the kidnapper’s perspective for too long couldn’t be healthy.

“I’m gonna go ahead and check out the kitchen. Jaemin might need help.”  
“I’ll come with you. I need to uh- investigate a bit more there.”

Johnny quickly thinks up something, jumping up to join Taeyong. Jaemin watches them leave; it might be crowded if he went back to the kitchen now, so he looks around again.

More people are talking now, separated into groups. Ten is still alone, fiddling with the camera.  
Mark, Renjun, and Donghyuck are talking in the center of the room, sitting down. Sicheng and Kun are quietly talking in a corner. Doyoung, Jungwoo, and Jaehyun are standing near the kitchen. They seem to be debating going into the kitchen or staying here. Yuta and Taeil are standing near each other, but Jeno can’t tell if they’re talking or not, their backs facing him.

He decides to walk up to the trio of Doyoung, Jungwoo, and Jaehyun. He overhears a bit of their conversation.

“We should keep watch out here. If we split up too much, the kidnapper could…”  
“Are you saying it’s one of us again?”  
“..I’m just saying its a possibility.”  
“How about I go in the kitchen. You two can stay out here so it’s about even.”  
“It’s not even, there’s only four people in there. And before it was just Lucas and Jaemin. If Lucas is behind all this, do you think he’d have any problem overtaking Jaemin in a fight?”  
“Please, we can’t accuse each other. There’s no way…”

With that plea, Jungwoo finally shows some real emotion. Jeno is about to interject then, but a buzz from their phones beats him to it.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket, turning it on.  
The screen lights up, with a notification this time. The timer is still there- 24:45. He checks the notification- Messaging Feature Unlocked.

...What? Jeno tries sliding the notification like he does on his own phone. He’s met with a screen asking him to input a passcode. How was he supposed to know this? Just then, another notification pops up. Jeno hears the buzz from everyone’s phones at the same time.

Lee Jeno, your personal passcode is: 9009.

Well, one mystery solved. Jeno inputs the passcode and is almost surprised it works. The screen he’s brought to mimics his own, except there’s a single app installed. A black messaging app. 

He doesn’t hesitate to open it. He knows the kidnapper wouldn’t be stupid enough to let them contact people outside, but he finds himself hoping in spite if this fact.

When he opens it, he sees the names of everyone else here. They have no message history, yet it appears Jeno’s started a conversation with all of them. Just, no one has actually sent a message. There’s no button that would let him message a different contact. Well, he saw this coming.

He opens the conversation with Jaemin without thinking. What’s he supposed to say? Just as he thinks this, a message appears on the screen.

Jaemin: Hey Jeno! this is pretty cool, right?

Jeno smiles before sending a reply.

Jeno: i was just about to msg u  
Jeno: yeah, i guess its for if we split up? pretty nice of the kidnapper

Jeno suddenly thinks of what Doyoung had said. ‘If Lucas is behind all this, he’d have no problem overtaking Jaemin.’ He disagreed with the theory of one of them being behind this, but he couldn’t help but worry when Jaemin was mentioned. 

Clearly, Jaemin was okay though so Jeno had nothing to worry about. He breathes out a sigh of relief before looking up from the phone.

“Jaemin just messaged me… he’s fine, so, I think you’re okay to go in the kitchen.”

He addresses Jungwoo, who nods in response and goes through the door.

Now that Jeno thinks about it, this came at a really convenient time. Weird…

“Now we have a messaging app? What exactly is the kidnapper getting at?”

Doyoung eyes the application on his phone suspiciously. It was definitely weird… the kidnapper seemed so- childish. Like they’re adding more and more features to this game they’re making.

“It must be for when we split up. Now we don’t have to worry as much about leaving this room if we need to.”

Jaehyun says this, but Doyoung still seems somewhat unconvinced. He probably wouldn’t be leaving this room.

“Fine… but when that timer gets down to 5 hours, we should all be here.”

No one argues with that. That’s when all this would finally end…

Jeno feels a buzz in his hand then. He looks down at the lit screen.

Donghyuck: hey roomie, can u come over here?  
Donghyuck: its important

Jeno was planning on heading over there next anyways. He announces this to Jaehyun and Doyoung, who silently nod. ...Would they be okay together?

He walks over to the center of the room, not sure of what to expect. He hears raised voices as he approaches.

“Dude, there’s no way that’s true.”  
“For once, I agree with Mark. Stop making up stories witch boy.”  
“Why won’t you guys believe meee? It’s true, I knew it before coming here!”

That’s when Donghyuck sees Jeno coming towards them.

“Jeno! Come, tell them how wrong they are!”  
“Uh, what am I agreeing with?”  
“The story of Hope’s Peak! This school is haunted… a teacher mysteriously died here 10 years ago. He left a curse on the school as he died, vowing he’d get revenge against his murderer. His murderer… who still works in the school to this day!”

...Weren’t they already in enough of a horror story?

Jeno’s silence seems to convey everything that it needs to to Donghyuck. He dramatically sighs, then turns his face from Jeno childishly.

“No one is on my side here! That victim must have left a curse on me!”  
“Are you saying you murdered him?”  
“What- no, it was a joke! You focus on the wrong parts!”

Jeno stifles a laugh at what Renjun says. Donghyuck must be pretty bored to be making these kinds of stories. Actually, it could just be a hobby of his. Jeno could see it.

But really, telling horror stories when they’ve been stuck in a school and told to kill each other? That’s some kinda escapism.

“Let’s focus on our own horror story. Is that all you messaged me for Donghyuck?”  
“...Yeah. I should’ve messaged someone else! I’m asking your boyfriend next.”

Jeno heart leaps at the term. He’s talking about Jaemin, right?

“If you’re talking about Jaemin, he won’t come right now. He’s making food for us.”  
“Wow, really? I would’ve tried myself but uh- I’m not super great at cooking and stuff like that.”

Mark and Taeyong would be a fun combo.

“It’s cool; he and Taeyong can cook, so we’ll be good for these 20…” Jeno checks his phone quickly, “24 hours and 30 minutes.”

“We still have a whole day left…”  
“Then let me tell you guys about… the mystery of the one-armed-“  
“I’ll leave you guys to it.”  
“Jeno! Fine, leave, you don’t appreciate my stories anyways.”

Donghyuck dramatically huffs. Mark and Renjun send Jeno ‘please save us’ looks, not so subtly.

Jeno just sheepishly smiles and gives a wave before running off. Horror stories were definitely not his thing. Especially not in this situation.

There’s only a few people he hasn’t talked to yet… Sicheng, Kun, Yuta, and Taeil, who are now talking in a group of four.

“What’s the messaging thing for anyways? We’re all stuck together, I can just yell.”  
“I don’t know, but I don’t think yelling would work. Did you notice anything last night when we went to our rooms?”

Jeno listens closer then. It seemed like Taeil found out something the rest haven’t yet.

“No, what?”  
“Sicheng and I talked for a while last night. I even sang for him! But no one said anything about it or yelled at me to stop. I think the rooms are soundproof… none of you heard me sing, did you?”

Kun looks surprised then says, “No, I didn’t hear anything… I guess we can go back to our rooms in shifts then so we don’t have to sleep on the floor. We can just message each other now, so it should be fine.”

Jeno can’t help but worry at the thought. What if this was all going how the kidnapper wanted it to? Was it really okay to split up like that?

“Speaking of, I really want to take a nap. Just text me if you have to.” 

How could Yuta be so casual about this? If it’s just one person though, it’s probably fine… Yuta kind of scared him anyway so maybe this was for the best.

Kun finally notices Jeno then. “Hey Jeno! You got the messaging app?”  
“Yep… don’t know when I’ll need it though.”

Just then, as if on cue, his phone buzzes. Jeno takes it out of his pocket, seeing one notification.

Jaemin: i finished!  
Jaemin: well, more like we finished. Taeyong helped me out so there should be plenty for everyone. can you get everyone in here?  
Jeno: Yeah, no problem.   
Jaemin: <3

Jeno blinks at the emoticon. He rushes to gather everyone so he can see Jaemin again. He goes to the last person left in the ballroom; Ten.

“Hey Ten, there’s food if you want some. We’re all gonna go eat.”  
“...”  
“I’m tired. Plus, how could I trust some food you guys made? If I were you, I wouldn’t touch it.”

Before Jeno can respond, Ten is standing up and making his way out of the room.

Jeno almost builds up the courage to stop him, but doesn’t bother when he remembers the messaging app. It’d be okay…

Jeno then makes his way to the kitchen himself. When he opens the door, all the seats are taken. Nearly everyone has already started eating. The food looked… amazing.

“Wow, you and Taeyong did all this?”  
“Yeah! Actually, Lucas helped a bit too!”

Jeno is pretty surprised by that; Lucas?

“I’m glad you didn’t have to do it all yourself.”

Jaemin laughs a bit at that before responding. “Please, it’s just cooking. It’s pretty fun, actually! I should teach you sometime. But for now, why don’t we eat? We can go out in the ballroom.”

Jeno nods, serving himself. When he and Jaemin go to leave, Donghyuck and Mark follow.

Donghyuck fake cries as soon as they’re out of the kitchen. “They didn’t save a seat for me! I’m practically the Beyoncé of the group, and I get kicked outside? I-“  
“Isn’t it fine out here? Also, you’re not Beyoncé.”

Mark sighs a bit at Donghyuck. It seems like they’re actually getting along pretty well, despite how they act.

Jaemin laughs, then takes a seat near the kitchen door, along the wall.

“Lucas isn’t coming?”  
“No, he’s probably eating with Taeyong.”  
“Let me guess; Taeyong made him spicy beef enchiladas.”

Jaemin laughs again, and it sounds sweeter every time. “Yeah! How’d you know? Lucky guess?”

Jeno shrugs in a teasing way and Jaemin just smiles before letting it go.

“I forgot to ask, but where’s Ten and Yuta? I noticed we were missing those two.”  
“They both went to their rooms to sleep… I would’ve stopped them, but we have the messaging app so it should be fine.”

Jaemin laughs again and- wait, why’s he laughing?

“Oh, you would’ve stopped them? How exactly?”  
“U-uh… I’d beg?”

Jaemin lets out another laugh. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Donghyuck must have overheard, because he’s laughing too now. Great. Jeno pouts, taking a bite of his food. It instantly restores his mood because damn this is a good salad.

They eat in silence mostly, only occasionally talking through bites. Donghyuck stretches as he finishes his food, letting out an obnoxious yawn.

“If those two are sleeping, I should be able to too. You guys can message me, okay?”

Something about Donghyuck leaving made Jeno worry. He knew he couldn’t stop him though. Maybe he should actually try begg- no, not in front of Jaemin.

“Yeah, sure. Go get your beauty sleep.”

Mark finally takes a break from chowing down on his meal to wave at him. Donghyuck playfully winks at Jeno, then leaves the ballroom with his phone in hand.

Jeno notices Jaemin finished his food as well; he takes a second to check the timer- 23:30. Nearly 24 hours left… 

“Do you wanna see what’s going on in the kitchen?”  
“Good idea. It’s kinda lonely out here.”

Mark finishes his last bite then and tags along. He seems kinda tired too… maybe he was too scared to go to his room?

When they enter the kitchen, there’s a loud commotion. There are 10 people in the room, after all. It seems like most of them have finished eating and are just talking now. Lucas jumped up when he caught sight of Jaemin. So he didn’t totally leave Jaemin for Taeyong, Jeno thinks.

“Jaemin! Can we go to our room now? I need a nap from all I ate!” 

Jaemin seems to hesitate; Jeno was of the hopeful opinion that Jaemin wanted to stay here with him.

“You know you don’t need me to come with you, right? I’ll go with you though…” Damn.

Jeno watches them head out together, Lucas bombarding the younger with compliments. He seemed really nice… if Lucas wasn’t so attached to Jaemin, Jeno would try to talk to him himself.

...Oh, shit, Jeno forgot to ask Jaemin about what he and Lucas talked about last night. Or last morning…? Who knows. Still, it was none of his business. He could always message Jaemin too.

Taeyong motions to the seat next to him where Lucas just left. Jeno makes his way over, joining the conversation at the table. Taeyong was kinda like a mom… 

“Did you finish your food Jeno?” Just like a mom.  
“Yeah, it was really good! Thanks.”

Taeil and Sicheng get up then. 

“We’re gonna head to our room. There should still be over half of us here, so it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll definitely be here by the time the timer gets to 10 hours.” Taeil must have been thinking about this for a while; he really seemed to just want to get some rest. Sicheng nodded along, his eyelids drooping. The rest of the group simply agrees, watching them leave.

If Jeno was being honest, he was getting pretty tired too. And now he didn’t have Jaemin to talk to…

“Hey, I-“ Jeno’s interrupted by a buzz from inside his pocket.

He checks the phone, and-

Lucas: dude can you do me a favor?  
Jeno: uhh sure, what?  
Lucas: can you talk to taeyong for me? honestly i really want to get to know him but-   
Lucas: im shy!  
Jeno: u? shy?  
Lucas: around taeyong, yeah! come on, ill tell jaemin good things abt u if u do this for me

What was going on?? Jeno really thought he was interested in Jaemin.. he turned around pretty fast. When Lucas mentions Jaemin though… 

Jeno: fine, i wasnt tired anyways  
Jeno: ill let u know how it goes

Lucas doesn’t reply then; maybe he fell asleep? In any case, that was a weird conversation. Jeno was definitely not a certified wingman but here goes, he supposes.

“Taeyong, what exactly do you do as a homemaker?”

Taeyong looks a little caught off-guard by the question; to be fair, Jeno had asked it out of nowhere.

“Oh! Ummm I can perform household chores like cleaning and cooking really well! I know it sounds lame, but, I won’t complain that I was admitted into this school. Well actually, with how this is going, maybe I should be complaining.”

“Ah, that’s true. I’m known as the ultimate lucky student but here I am…”

Jeno sighs a bit. It really was ironic. He continues though, not forgetting his task; this was about Taeyong, not him.

“So you’re kinda like the ultimate mom?”

Taeyong softly laughs at the term. “I… suppose, yes. I’ve never had anyone call me that, though.”

Jeno sheepishly smiles then; yep, he definitely wasn’t cut out to be a wingman. Should he message Lucas? He checks his phone real quick; still no notification. He turns his attention back to Taeyong, trying not to worry about it.

“It’d be kind of a cute title... the ultimate mom, Taeyong!” ...okay it just kind of sounded like Jeno was flirting now. Back to square one. Should he bring up Lucas? Jeno couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he goes for it.

“So, did Lucas like the food you made specially for him?”

Taeyong fondly smiles at the mention of Lucas. “I’d say so- he told me so after every bite.” Jeno looks to see if Taeyong is exaggerating as a joke, but he looks dead serious. Wow, Lucas.

Jeno continues to make light conversation for a while. He can’t help but worry about the lack of notifications he gets throughout the conversation, though. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas had just passed out, but…

He checks the timer on his phone. 22:50. Okay, it had been nearly 30 minutes since Lucas last messaged him. And he never heard anything from Jaemin. The worry gnaws at him until he finally excuses himself from the conversation.

“I’m gonna go to my room too… thanks for the food again.”  
“Of course! Sleep well… we’ll leave here soon.”

Jeno nods in agreement, with a genuine eye-smile. Taeyong really was a sweet person; it’s no wonder he already has Johnny and Lucas whipped.

Jeno soon pushes these thoughts out of his mind though. He can only focus on Jaemin; he doesn’t bother saying anything to the people he rushes past in the ballroom.

He opens the door to Jaemin and Lucas’ room; he had remembered it was right in front of his and Donghyuck’s. 

But when he opens it…

Only Jaemin is in the room. Wait... Donghyuck?? He’s in Lucas’ bed... Jeno decides he’ll worry about that later. They seem to be in a deep sleep. Jeno breathes a deep sigh of relief but doesn’t let himself relax just yet; where was Lucas?

Maybe he had gone out to see Taeyong himself? Either way, Jeno felt exhausted from the rush he just experienced. He went across the hall to open his own door. That’s when a rush kicked back in again; overwhelming and intensifying.

Lucas was on the floor, in the center of the room; with a knife, sticking right out of his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> investigation chapter next rip


	3. Chapter 1- Deadly Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angst ahoy

Jeno couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe, he- 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. They had a plan, they were going to escape… why did this happen? They were supposed to be out of here in less than a day, but Lucas was here, with a knife in his chest. And one of them…

He finally learned how to walk again, like he just re-taught himself the movements in the minute he was in shock. He ran up to Lucas… please, please be…

He felt nothing. Nothing but a… body. A body and nothing more.

He had to tell someone- but who? He yelled at first, but no one could hear him probably. He took one last look at Lucas before running off. He didn’t go to Jaemin’s room… the longer Jaemin didn’t know about this, the better. He ran into the ballroom where most of the group was.

He ran so hard, he found himself unable to speak again as he arrived. He took a few deep breaths, then yelled out, “Guys! Lucas- Lucas is-!”

There were 8 people spread around the room. They all walked up to Jeno, confused. Johnny and Taeyong ran up to him, clearly worried.

“Lucas? Jeno, what’s wrong?” Johnny questions him gently while Taeyong puts an arm around him, steadying him.

“I found Lucas… in my room… he’s- he was killed.” Jeno wishes he hadn’t said it as soon as the words leave his mouth. He had to eventually of course, but- to be the one to deliver the news was… it felt horrible.

Taeyong’s grip on Jeno loosens and his face pales. “Wh- are you- are you sure? He was really-“

Johnny looks down; he seemed really disappointed in himself. Jeno wants to tell him it’s not his fault, but he’s in no condition to be comforting other people right now.

The others finally catch on and each have various expressions, but they all convey one emotion; fear. After all, this wasn’t part of the ending they had promised themselves… it’s what they wanted to avoid, at any cost. And one of them had-

He needed to stop thinking like that. The kidnapper had to be behind this… they just wanted them to suspect each other. Jeno couldn’t fall for it.

Johnny finally lifts his head up, making his way to the exit. “We have to… we have to see. If any of you want to stay behind, I understand.”

Some of them, like Donghyuck and Mark, seem to hesitate but eventually everyone follows Johnny’s lead. They must have been scared… of being left alone.

Kun and Jaehyun go to each door, alerting everyone to get out of bed and come with them. Kun tells Jeno he couldn’t get Jaemin to wake up.

He opens the door gently, quickly walking to Jaemin’s side. “Jaemin? Jaemin, wake up, please.” He gently nudges his side. He was definitely breathing, but he didn’t seem like he was gonna wake up right now.

He lets him rest; again, he wants to keep the news from Jaemin as long as possible anyways. He tells Kun and Jaehyun about Jaemin’s deep sleep and then joins Johnny’s group- which is everyone but Jaemin at this point.

Wait, Donghyuck was with them… where had he been? He looked sleepy still, unsure of what he was woken up for. Jeno would have to ask where he had slept later, though.

Jeno had left the door slightly cracked. He didn’t want Jaemin to wake up and see… that, right across the hall.

“Okay, I’m opening it.” Johnny announces, his voice slightly wavering. Even Johnny could be scared… of course he could, but it was still a side of him Jeno didn’t think he’d see.

Jeno stays near the back; he didn’t- he didn’t want to see that… again…

A shriek from Donghyuck breaks his heart. With all the commotion that follows, Jeno looks back into Jaemin’s room. Still sleeping- it felt kind of unnatural. He was definitely breathing though, so Jeno didn’t have to worry. But Lucas…

Then, in this horrible moment… the horrid voice fittingly made a reappearance.

“A body has been discovered! Well, one of you already knew about it, huh?”

…

“You kids have 1 hour to investigate! When the new timer on your phones go off, meet in the gym. If you’re not there… well, you know! Happy searching!”

Jeno notices the speaker in the hallway then. … An hour? To investigate who killed Lucas? He didn’t need an hour… it was obviously the kidnapper’s doing.

The voice played back in his head- ‘One of you already knew about it.’ If he really thought about it… there’d be no reason to set all this up just to kill one of them themselves. And they could’ve killed all of them when they initially kidnapped them.

“We already know who did it- the guy behind all this!”  
“I think… we should investigate. Just in case. All our lives are on the line for the trial… don’t you remember what the voice said?”

Jeno speaks before he thinks; he was right though. The voice had promised that only the killer would be spared if they couldn’t figure out who did it. So they had to… if there was even the smallest chance that one of them did it.

“You really think one of us did this? Jeno, please…” Taeyong looked like he was about to cry. But Jeno also-

“I don’t- I’m just saying, it’s possible. And if we don’t find out, they’ll kill us… we should investigate, for Lucas’ sake and for our own.”

Jungwoo slowly nods in understanding. “He’s right. What else do you suggest we do with this hour?”

Taeyong chokes on a sob before running- it looks like he’s heading to his room. No one stops him… it looks like everyone else was willing to investigate. Jeno silently thanks Jungwoo for making him not look like a supervillain.

Johnny looks like he wants to go comfort him, but he stays where he is. After all, if they couldn’t catch the culprit, then Taeyong and everyone else…

Jeno doesn’t notice Donghyuck has been shaking until he clings to him. “Jeno… what happened? Why is he here…”

That’s right… Donghyuck had went to sleep, but he didn’t fall asleep in his own room. Jeno should ask about that now.

“Donghyuck, what room did you sleep in?”  
“Huh? Ours, of course.”  
“What room did you come out of?”

It looks like Donghyuck hadn’t even realized. He couldn’t blame him with everything that had happened but…

“Jaemin was next to me, so I must have been in his room… but I swear, I fell asleep in my bed!” Donghyuck looks like he might start crying if Jeno doesn’t believe him.

“Yeah, that’s strange… thanks Hyuck.” Jeno would have to remember that…

Jeno gets a good look around; Johnny and Jaehyun are the closest to the body. Jeno knew he had to get a closer look too… he had to know for sure that none of them did this.

With this in mind, Jeno takes slow steps towards Lucas. He really wishes he would just open his eyes… 

He sees Jaehyun grimace when he approaches- he’s scared to know what they had found out.

“There’s a bunch- whoever did this is…” A bunch? Jeno gets closer, despite every sense in his body begging him not to.

Stab wounds.. 4, 5, 6… he feels like he’s going to throw up.

The more he saw, the more he wanted to believe no one here did this.

“Jeno, you can leave this to us. We’ll tell you what we find after we finish.” Johnny puts a hand on Jeno’s back, reassuringly.

“Okay.. thanks guys.” He could trust them with it; their lives were at risk, too.

A yell near the door makes him snap his head around.

“Why’d you do it?! We were so close to just leaving and you fucked it all up!” Yuta was yelling in Donghyuck’s face, who had actually broken into tears at this point. Jeno ran over, but Renjun and Mark beat him to it.

“Hey, leave him alone! We don’t know that yet! Maybe if you actually helped investigate, you’d know that.” Renjun faced down Yuta, who only scoffed. Mark held Donghyuck who was still crying, letting out small sobs.

“Me? Investigate? I’m a prince and you expect me to investigate a murder?” Yuta laughs a bit before turning to Jeno “Just fill me in when you finish so I can order the final decree, boy wonder.” With that, Yuta flippantly waves his hand behind him, then starts to walk down the hallway.

Wait, didn’t Yuta…

“Wait! You came to your room first, right?” Jeno calls out after him, hoping Yuta will at least humor him for a minute.

“Yeah. So?”  
“So you didn’t hear anything? Or see anything?”  
“...Did you forget something? Why don’t you ask Kun why that would’ve been impossible and leave me alone?” Or you could just tell me yourself, Jeno thinks bitterly. Talking to Kun was more pleasant anyways. 

As Yuta continues to walk away, Jeno remembers Donghyuck. He whips around to see Mark awkwardly trying to comfort Donghyuck. Renjun still looked pissed, even after Yuta had left.

“Donghyuck, why don’t you go rest? I’ll find out what happened, I promise.” Now Jeno was awkwardly trying to comfort him.

Something has been bothering Jeno though. Why had Yuta attacked Donghyuck of all people? He couldn’t ask about it right now though; not with the state Donghyuck was in.

He nods, his cries quieting down. He heads back towards Jaemin’s room. As he does, someone comes out of the room.

“Jeno? What’s going on?” Jeno was beyond glad to see Jaemin again, but…

“...There was a murder.” Jaemin instantly pales and freezes in place.

“What? W-who?” Jaemin seems to trip over his own words, terrified.

Jeno pauses before answering. He secretly kind of hoped for Renjun or Mark to answer instead.

“It was Lucas. He was stabbed by someone, we- we have an hour to investigate.”

The tears come instantly to his eyes. How could they only get one hour to investigate the murder of their friend? When they were like this…

“Someone here did it?” Jaemin gets the question out through tears. Though it was less a question and more of a plead. “I- I don’t want to believe it, but if it’s possible then we have to make sure.” Jeno knows he doesn’t have to explain it to Jaemin.

“...Yeah. I’ll join you in a bit, okay? I need a minute.” Jeno nods; he couldn’t help but think- what if it was Jaemin he had found lying on the floor? They were in the same room… what if they had taken Jaemin instead? What if Jaemin… Jeno shook the thoughts out of his head. This line of thinking wouldn’t lead to anything- he needed evidence right now, not theories.

He remembers that he needs to talk to Kun, and goes to find him. He found him talking with Jungwoo in the hall. He hopes they were investigating…

“Kun, can I ask you about something real quick?”  
“Yeah, about what?”  
“Uhh sorry, I tried to ask Yuta but he just told me to ask you. So, why would he not have been able to hear or see anything while in his room?” He starts to worry that Kun might not even know and Yuta just sent him off at random.

“Ohhh that. Sicheng and I tested it- the walls are totally soundproof. For our rooms, at least.”  
“Does that mean it all happened in the room we found Lucas in?”  
“Most likely, yes.” Jeno felt horrible just talking about it.

“Jeno, do you remember everyone that went to their rooms? And in what order?” Jungwoo’s sudden question makes Jeno think back to what felt like hours ago.

“Hmm… First, Yuta went by himself. Then Ten also went alone. They both left before we all ate. After we ate, Donghyuck left. Then, Lucas and Jaemin left at the same time. A bit after Taeil and Sicheng also left. Then I went and… you know the rest.”

Jungwoo seems to consider everything Jeno said then nodded. “That’s interesting.. let’s remember this.” Jeno had a feeling Jungwoo already knew all that and was just quizzing Jeno. He simply nods anyways- it’ll definitely be a helpful hint.

He waves goodbye before heading off. Jaehyun and Johnny were probably still checking the body. Just then, Jaemin walks up to him, rubbing at his eyes but overall looking better.

“Hey, it’s fine. You should rest, while we-“  
“No! If I hadn’t slept then, then Lucas wouldn’t be-“  
“It’s not your fault!” Jeno maybe sounds a bit more forceful than he intended to sound. But the last thing he wanted was for Jaemin to blame himself for this.

“Didn’t you notice something unnatural about how you fell asleep anyways?” Renjun walks up to them, presumably from Jaemin’s room where Donghyuck was resting.

“I- yeah, you’re right. I don’t remember falling asleep… how do you know about that though?”  
“I talked to Donghyuck. He had the same experience. He says it almost feels like he was drugged.”  
“Yeah, exactly…”

Jeno realizes what Renjun is saying, while also giving a big clue.

“See? You couldn’t have done anything… you don’t need to blame yourself.”  
“...Maybe. We should try to find evidence of the supposed ‘drug’ before our hour is up.”

Jeno believes it already but agrees they’d need actual proof. Jeno’s proof was the state Donghyuck and Jaemin were in when he tried to wake them. They made a lot of noise after seeing the body, yet they didn’t even stir. And the door was wide open at the time.

“Okay. We only have 25 minutes left.”  
“We should talk with everyone at least once. It’s important that we get a better idea of what happened.”  
“Yeah, I agree. I’ve already talked with Yuta, Kun, and Jungwoo. Donghyuck and Taeyong probably aren’t up to talking right now.”  
“Can’t blame ‘em.. did anyone else come to their room after Lucas and I did?”  
“Yeah, just Taeil and Sicheng.”  
“Hmm.. let’s check in with them first.”

Did Jaemin suspect them? It was possible…

They couldn’t find them in the hall, so they made their way to the ballroom. Taeil and Sicheng were near the kitchen door, talking quietly.

“Hey, Taeil, Sicheng! You guys went to your room together after eating right? Did you see anything unusual?”

Taeil answers swiftly, “We heard a door slam shut as we were walking towards this hallway. But when we actually got here, all the doors were closed. So, we don’t know which door it was.”

“We kind of ignored it and just went to our room. Maybe we could’ve stopped it…” Sicheng adds, looking disappointed.

“No, I don’t think we could’ve done anything.. you notice anything else though?”  
“Hmmm we heard a couple notifications from someone’s phone a bit before the door slam. But again, we don’t know who.”

Jeno nods at what Taeil says, making a mental note of it. Was someone texting the murderer right after it happened? Was the person they had heard even the murderer?

“Thanks guys. Was there anything in the kitchen?”  
“Like, as evidence? Nope.” Taeil answers simply.

“Well, thanks guys. We should keep going Jeno; we have 20 minutes.”  
“Alright, we need to talk to Ten.”  
“Oh joy. Let’s head towards his room. I’m willing to bet he’s not actually helping.”

Can’t argue with that, Jeno thinks. 

When they finally get to the photographer’s room, they see that someone had beat them to it.

“I’m just asking a simple question! If you don’t cooperate, we all die genius!”  
“Fuck off! I don’t need to cooperate with shitty questions.”   
“So you didn’t see anything?”   
“No! I came to my room and I slept, that’s all.”

Doyoung had been questioning Ten. He was reminded of Doyoung’s talk show and how he easily got his guests to talk. Ten seemed like he was a lot less easy.

“I don’t think Ten will be any help… and there’s only 5 minutes left now.” Jaemin tells Jeno this before they actually enter Ten’s room. “Yeah… stay here, okay?”

“Huh? Why?”  
“Please? I just have to check in with Johnny and Jaehyun quickly.”

Realization seems to dawn on Jaemin’s face and he quickly responds “Oh. I’ll.. check on Donghyuck again before time’s up.” Jeno nods, heading into his room. Was it even his room anymore? A murder had happened here.. how could he sleep here without thinking of Lucas’ body?

He braces himself before walking back in the room; he hopes he never has to again.

“Hey, Jeno. You might wanna check this out.”  
“What is it?” Jeno gets closer, avoiding the body and walking towards Jaehyun.  
“Looks like this was phone. It’s totally smashed though.”

Bits of what used to be one of their phones (it couldn’t be anything else that was here) was found near Lucas’ body. There was no chance of it working again. Was someone destroying evidence? They couldn’t get into the phones anyways, though. So what clue could it have left?

“Yeah… was there anything else?”  
“There’s 6 total stab wounds. A bit of bruising on his wrists and chest. Other than that, nothing.”  
“Thanks, Johnny. Jaehyun. I’m sorry you guys had to do.. this.”  
“It’s fine. We know how important it is. We can prove none of us did it now, yeah?”

Jeno wants to believe it. He should believe it. He has to-  
“Yeah.” Yeah..

“Jeno! Come here!” He can tell Jaemin’s voice cane from just out the door. He must be in the hallway.

He rushes out to see Jaemin standing with Donghyuck and Mark. Donghyuck looked a lot better. It reminded Jeno of how Jaemin had cheered up Lucas in a night. Donghyuck also had Mark and Renjun though, so it wasn’t quite the same.

“What’s wrong?” He could tell Jaemin was making a point to not look in the room Jeno had just come from. He kept his eyes glued to the floor. Did he find something?

“There’s a slight bloodstain on the carpet here. It’s really small though; it looks like it was wiped up in a hurry.” Wiped up? He can’t think of what someone could’ve used here to do that. Actually, they had some paper towels in their bathrooms. It would be too late to check for evidence in all their bathrooms though.

“Why’s there blood in here? Lucas died in Jeno’s room.”  
“..Yeah. Let’s remember this, okay?” Jaemin says nothing more to Mark, looking to Jeno.

Just then, a sound comes from all their phones again. It wasn’t like a timer sound, though.

Jeno checked his phone- 2 minutes left. But what caused the sound was a notification- _Notes Feature Unlocked._ Notes? For what?

“Do you think this is for us to keep track of what we’ve learned? For the trial, I’m guessing.” Jaemin was right. And it came at a super convenient time again.. they were definitely being watched.

“Yeah.. I’ll go ahead and use it.” It would definitely be helpful. Jeno didn’t say it, but he couldn’t help but think they wouldn’t be given this feature if one of them didn’t do it. But.. who?

He clears his mind of this and focuses on what he knows for sure right now.

Notes:  
-Yuta, Ten, Donghyuck, Lucas and Jaemin, Taeil and Sicheng went to their rooms. All in that order.  
-I first found Lucas’ body in my room, on the floor.  
-There were 6 stab wounds (which we assumed were all caused by the knife in his chest) and bruising on his wrists and chest.  
-Donghyuck and Jaemin were drugged (?)  
-Donghyuck fell asleep in his room but woke up in Lucas’ bed.  
-Taeil and Sicheng heard two phone notifications go off before a door slammed shut  
-Room walls are soundproof  
-Bloodstain outside my room wiped up in a hurry  
-Phone shattered to pieces by Lucas’ body

That’s all he could recall for now. Was this really enough to go off of?

He shows Jaemin what he had typed out, who nods after reading through it. “Yep, I think that’s everything.”

Then, a sound goes off from everyone’s phones again. The timer must have went off… On cue, the voice comes back.

“Meet up in the gym! And all of you better show up!”

That’s all the voice had to say, it seems. They all made their way to the gym- how could they not take the threat seriously with what had happened?

Even Taeyong eventually comes out of his room. It looks like Johnny had come in and talked to him. His eyes were red and he struggled to keep up with the rest of them, not saying a word.

None of them were saying anything though. What would happen at the trial? What if they get it wrong? Everyone must be thinking like this.

They arrive at the gym in a short time; it was near their rooms after all. The second they all step foot inside, the voice fills the large room.

“Good, you’re all here! You’re probably wondering where we’ll hold the trial, right? Well, here it is!”

A loud ding! sounds from the right side of the room. There’s.. an elevator shaft? When did that get here?

“You guys probably didn’t notice it before! Let’s just say I’m very good at hiding things. Anyways, get moving! The longer you dawdle, the less time you get for the trial!”

Johnny takes the lead, making sure everyone is following. It’s a large elevator; enough to fit all of them, even if it’s a little clustered.

Jeno clutches onto his phone; with the evidence he needed to find out who did this. He had to, for everyone.

He feels a soft hand squeeze his own, and looks up to see Jaemin smiling at him. One he hasn’t seen since.. “It’s okay. We’ll all work together and find the solution, together.” Jeno nods, still a little shaken from the physical contact. “Yeah, we will. Thank you.” It’s simple, but Jaemin looks happy to hear it.

The elevator finally comes to a stop and another ding! is heard. The doors open to reveal-

“God.. it’s like an actual courtroom.” Doyoung scoffs a bit, looking around. He was right. There were 16 podiums, all arranged in a circle. There was a large chair behind the arrangement; kind of like a mock judge’s chair. It was modified so near the top of the seat, there was a speaker installed. So the voice wouldn’t be leaving them alone any time soon.

They talk briefly before each choosing a podium and standing behind it. He looked to Jaemin who was standing next to him and made sure he was ready. Well, as ready as he could be. Together, all of them had to uncover the mystery of Lucas’ death. Not only to avenge him, but to save the lives of everyone else left. He was ready.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a list of the talents for reference:
> 
> Jaehyun- Basketball Player  
> Doyoung- Talk Show Host  
> Jungwoo- Asmrtist (lol)  
> Mark- Skateboarder  
> Donghyuck- Tarot Card Reader  
> Kun- Magician  
> Lucas- Model  
> Ten- Photographer  
> Jeno- Lucky Student  
> Jaemin- ???  
> Taeyong- Homemaker  
> Yuta- Prince  
> Sicheng- Chinese Traditional Dancer  
> Renjun- Cartoon Artist  
> Taeil- Vocalist  
> Johnny- Tour Guide
> 
> i didnt proofread this at all pls dont tell me abt my mistakes i dont have time to fix them lmao.
> 
> Also, if you have any questions about how the game works or are just confused, feel free to message me! and if you just wanna talk abt it and share theories/predictions (thats always fun lol) message me on discord (jun#2162) or twt (@jisungracha)


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